MKVs not playing digital audio like AVIs

[bshaver]

I've had this problem for awhile but never really looked into the specific details about why it did this. When playing an AVI with some sort digital surround, AC3 in all my cases, I can't control the audio with windows in any way (Which I read was more or less normal with Windows). The only way to control it is with my remote for my RCA sound system. I don't mind this because it comes out in true 5.1 unlike when I play MKVs with a similar audio codec. No idea why it does not work even when they are both ac3 audio, an AVI will route the info directly to my sound system and it seems the MKV still uses windows.

This sucks because this PC is my media PC so having something play at true 5.1 is really nice.

Running: Windows 7, 2gb ram, opteron 165, soundblaster x-fi 5.1 USB connected to RCA 5.1 home theater system via TOSLINK cable. ( I read that the soundblaster 5.1 device that I use does not send 5.1 through optical it only sends it through analog. In my experience it only Sometimes seems to not play 5.1)

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Even just ideas of where to look.

[UncasMS]

the transmission of soundstreams to your receiver should work with this soundcard - BUT the software used for playback will have to provide the corresponding option to do so iirc - check your software for S/P-DIF or passthrough and give it a try.

5.1 can differ from 5.1 - one time you may find an AC3 format and next time i could be DTS.

[bshaver]

Success! Well, partially. I got the AC3 in MKVs to pass through to my receiver properly but I still can not get DTS to do it. It seems to be the codecs I have. I am using Combined Community Codec pack, FFDshow audio decoder. I've fiddled with most of the settings and when DTS is on passthrough it does not play. I've downloaded a different codec for DTS but it just isn't taking over. Thanks for the support so far and it helped enough that I've only 50% more to get working!

[UncasMS]

it may still be a matter of the playback software (which you havent named yet).

decent players i'd recommend are:

- Media Player Classic Home Cinema


and

- KMPlayer

notes on spdif for KMPlayer can be found here

give them a try and take a look at their settings and options if they do not work for the dts files out of the box

[MilesAhead]

Another good free software .mkv player is Splash Lite If you have a beefy video card it can use the GPU. The main drawback to it is finicky subtitle support. It prefers .srt although they are improving this. Looks like a new software outfit. The Pro version isn't even released yet. The best thing about Splash Lite is it doesn't crash when you advance the slider into the movie.

[bshaver]

Hey thank for all the help. I think I've come to the realization that for some reason DTS won't passthrough. (BTW I used to use Windows Media player, don't mock me it ran very smoothly.) I really like that Kmplayer though and will probably be using that. Pretty easy to get around and find what I was looking for so thanks for that.
I've it set for AC3 to go through Spdif and it works great. When DTS is set to spdif it just does not play the audio. I have it set to output as ProLogic II and it sounds pretty alright. I'm happy to get any more out of it than I was. Will just have to look for more high def with AC3!

Thanks very much, if you can think of any different things that would be appreciated as well.

[MilesAhead]

This is a nice free tool to convert DTS to AC3. It demuxes the DTS, converts to AC3, then remuxes. It has both Folder and single file mode. Very handy if you have a bunch of episodes with DTS audio and need to convert to AC3 in order to play them. I was doing all the demuxing, converting with Aften, and remuxing by hand until I found this. It takes all the slogging out of it.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/PopCorn_MKV_AudioConverter